EDIT: Saw this tonight through some, erm 'contacts' shall we say. Just after Inglourious Barsardos too. But I digress...

Amazing. Neigh, breathtaking. It's bloody breathtaking.

In all aspects. I can't recall ANY film have so many ideas, so much heart, and so much going on. Afterwards I had to just watch it again. I'm gonna get up early tomorrow and then I'll watch it again. I think you get the idea. 'nuff said.

---

I've yet to have the pleasure. I heard about Neill Blomkamp a while ago through the excellent Scriptshadow. I'd never read so much praise directed at one individual on that site. Any praise there is rare.

I've spent most of the evening watching the trailers. It's been amazing. How can you make trailers that good. Answer: Write a good script then get some talent to film it.

A prime example of

Quoted from F Mercury Tallent will out my dear!

An incredible film. No doubt, the BEST film of the summer. Superb acting, great special effects, unique story, and lots of blood-splosions.

Interesting tidbit. I read on IMDB that originally Peter Jackson told Blomkamp that he could direct the Halo movie. When that movie fell through, Jackson gave $35 million to Blomkamp and told him he could direct anything that he wanted to direct. Blomkamp, in turn, chose to direct this movie.

I gave this movie a solid A . With this and Moon, the sci-fi genre may be due for a comeback...

My wife and I saw this last night and we both walked away pretty disappointed.  Once you get past all the visuals, this film was a pretty much run-of-the-mill unfocussed sci-fi flick.


SPOILERS... FOR SOME OF YOU... MAYBE


The first few minutes make the movie seem that a mockumentary--which seemed to be the way to go with this.  Characters were interviewed.  They talked to the camera.  There was a little bit of 'did you film this,' etc.

Shortly after this, the genre turned to sci-fi action, losing that great documentary feel, only to have it return at the end.

Characterization in this movie, IMHO, was very flat.  The main character, Wikus, is an unattractive, goofy, cowardly, insensitive asshole with no redeeming qualities about him.  Yet he has a great job and a hot wife.  This character couldn't die a slow and painful enough death to suit my needs.

The aliens (the 'Prawn') were great visually. but they quickly lost steam.  They were introduced as insectoid creatures who were much stronger than humans, but they were getting bitch-slapped before to long.  And, despite their physical difference, they had too many human mannerisms for my taste.  When they get mad, they hit walls and knock things off the table.  And, in one scene, a father prawn affectionately rubs the head of his prawn son.

There are a lot of other things that annoyed me, but I thought that this would be enough to get my point across.


Phil

Got to agree with the dog here - funnily enough not with his provided points, but the spirit of it.

Good film, but it's being judged by a different standard 'cos it's South African in my view. I watched it with a friend from Cape Town, and he was very excited to see such a momentous release for their film industry. However, he too, felt that the accent brought a level of unnecessary comedy - even though he sounds more or less the same!

I just think the reaction is a little disproportionate to its quality. That said, it did veer off the standard hero quest which set it aside to a degree, but it remained pretty formulaic aside. Bad guys, a anti-hero protagonist and the - now obligatory - metaphorical need to "integrate"/pick your message. Nice social commentary, and the nod towards greed and its complexities when faced off with ethics - again, all very nice. But all of this talk about originality? That seems a stretch to me - what was original exactly? All of the themes have been touched on before, and visually it didn't break any boundaries - narratively? No, not to my mind. I don't want to "hate on it", 'cos it was good, but it also seems like a reaction to American dominance of the international wide release. Also, politically it was obvious a 'Saffa' film would permeate the globe ahead of the World Cup.

Did anyone feel it was also paying a serious level of homage to 'RoboCop'? I mean, the mechanical beast that the Wikus helmed was surely a - not so subtle - nod to ED209? MNU was surely OCP, and the forced Wikus metamorphosis was a variation of Alex Murphy/RoboCop. There also seemed to be a large dose of the social message that 'RoboCop' provided.

All in all, good film - very good even, but "Film of the decade", hell, "Film of the year"? That's just being caught up in a marketing wave, IMO.

Andrew

Just watched It..Awesome!
Love the touching ending with the flower.

It's the best film I've seen this year by a mile. I was surprised this only cost $35m to make, it looks like it could have cost so much more. I guess this shows what you can do if you don't spend half your budget on a big name/bigger ego actor. Big thumbs up to the special effects guys, the detail in the aliens were amazing.

I thought this was absolutely fantastic, I can't really pick fault with it.

I'm looking forward to seeing this again (which is pretty rare for me).

Top notch sci-fi.

I just watched this, and agree with a lot of what Phil said.

Either make it all doco, or not at all.

I could never take the aliens seriously, and it ruined the film for me.

The main character wasn't very likable and in points was thinking "Just kill him! Geeez!" I do find it very interesting that this was was the main characters first and last film, in terms of acting. I find it even more interesting that he ad-libbed ALL his lines.

Thoughts on this?

Saying all that, it definately wasn't a bad film at all. Original, very well shot and with a good message. I give it a ... 7/10.

Anyone have a treatment or script for this baby?

Just seen this today and thought it was a peculiar film.  It was good and had some great moments but felt the beginning to be a little slow.  I also didn't like the camera documentary style part, it just didn't suit the film.  

My one big question was, why did they want the aliens to sign this form?  Seemed like a complete waste of time.

Overall I'd give this a 7/10.

Wow, I guess i'm one of the only ones who that hands down it was THE best film of the summer. District 10 shall be interesting but I'm really worried about that. the last thing you want to do is create a movie universally loved, only to create a sequel universally hated.

Don't worry Aaron. The follow up will be just as good. Blomkamp will be as famous as Spielberg and Cameron within a decade.

Quoted from rendevous Blomkamp will be as famous as Spielberg and Cameron within a decade.

I totally agree, but I think what will really make him is what he does with Halo...

Wow.

Just went to see this tonight. People have been telling me that it's good, but I wasn't expecting to see one of the best films I've ever seen.

It's unbelievably good.

Incredibly powerful, brilliantly subversive, it's a genuine masterpiece.

I've not enjoyed a film as much since Empire Strikes Back.

The only slight problem I had with it has been mentioend by other people, this idea that they had to collect alien technology to get the fluid. Didn't make a lot of sense that they ahd to sort through trash to find stuff that must have come from the mother ship. Even in writing that though I can think of a plausible explanation, so I'm going to let them off.

A truly breathtaking film.

As to those saying that its reception is just because it's South African...no way. It's just based on the sheer power of the film. It destroys anything I've seen in a long, long time.

Saw it a while ago and, because everyone was telling me how great this movie was, I went into the theater with huge expectations...and I left it feeling quite disappointed.

It's not a bad movie at all, no, it's just not that memorable. Yes, the Apartheid references and Wikus' arc were nicely done but...it's just been done before, like in Enemy Mine. Once it turned into an action movie it became very generic and that huge walker looked like something right out of Matrix Revolutions.

A decent movie but definitely not a masterpiece  or groundbreaking in any way.

I thought this film was really good, but would not say masterpiece. I think the premise was brilliant and it had all the makings of a masterpiece of sci-fi but a few things let it down slightly for me.

Towards the end it turned into too much of an action movie and for me it slightly overshadowed the incredible human drama that was unfolding throughout the film. There was an homage to The Fly when he was pulling his fingernails out and I felt although they came close they could have done much more with his transformation. But, it was a fairly big budget and one would assume that there was pressure to ensure we had the gunfights and robocop ending to please the masses.

The ending though was superb, they managed to pull things back to the important aspect of the story and I have to say I had a tear in my eye right at the finish.

But it certainly was a great film, one of those rare films that after watching I just sit in silence for 5 mins saying "fuck, fuck, fuck" to myself..."why couldn't I have come up with that?".